Additive fabrication, e.g., 3-dimensional (3D) printing, provides techniques for fabricating objects, typically by causing portions of a building material to solidify at specific locations. Additive fabrication techniques may include stereolithography, selective or fused deposition modeling, direct composite manufacturing, laminated object manufacturing, selective phase area deposition, multi-phase jet solidification, ballistic particle manufacturing, particle deposition, laser sintering or combinations thereof. Many additive fabrication techniques build objects by forming successive layers, which are typically cross-sections of the desired object. Typically each layer is formed such that it adheres to either a previously formed layer or a substrate upon which the object is built. In one approach to additive fabrication, known as stereolithography, solid objects are created by successively forming thin layers of a curable polymer resin, typically first onto a substrate and then one on top of another. Exposure to actinic radiation cures a thin layer of liquid resin, which causes it to harden and adhere to previously cured layers or to the bottom surface of the build platform.
Every additive manufacturing technology requires some form of specialized material. Additive manufacturing techniques using light to cure a liquid material, such as stereolithography (SLA and DLP), into an object require photocurable materials.
Many current additive manufacturing materials are formed from polymeric (meth)acrylates. (Meth)acrylates are useful in 3D printing applications because the monomers and oligomers are highly reactive through radical photopolymerization. This reactivity allows for the printing process to proceed more quickly and efficiently with a higher degree of accuracy. However, the reactivity may also introduce less favorable qualities or limit the types of qualities available in a 3D printing process. The end material may be brittle because the resulting polymer is generally inhomogenous and highly crosslinked. As additive manufacturing pushes to be applicable in more functional prototyping or end-use applications, the material capabilities of (meth)acrylate based polymers become a limiting factor.
Accordingly there is a need in the art for new materials and expanded material properties for applications of additive manufacturing.